Codependency is such a dirty word to say these days. I think most people have heard of it and my suspicion is that most people suffer to a degree from it. And like allergies and anxieties, most people also deny that.

I can remember being in a therapy session when I was around 21 and feeling bad about something for my boyfriend. Like I had responsibility for having caused his feeling or I was trying to fix him (no surprise) and the therapist brought this to my attention. This was the first memory I can have of being aware that my tendency to mind-read and try to expect and manipulate other people’s happiness may not be “healthy”. The first time I was busted for being codependent.

I have worked for many many years on figuring out where I stop and other people begin. That place is called a boundary and is perfectly normal to have. In codependent families, people do not take responsibility for their own choices and either pass the blame on to other people or insinuate others have to make up for it. Defensiveness and resentment top the feeling charts in these family situations followed by guilt and shame. To say this is all “unhealthy” would be to understate the effects on the children who grow up here. It’s downright debilitating.

Yet even in the nicest of families, people do what they know and has been done before them. And it has been a real impetus for my emotional growth to not want to repeat the unhealthy behaviors that have been given to me. Children do as they see, not as you say. If I do not take responsibility for my choices and am always blaming others, so will they. Integrity and honesty start in your heart and flow downhill to those you love. So does pain and displacement of that pain. In the end, you are always still responsible for your own happiness.

At the same time, the care-taking of children draws me into areas where I can be dangerously codependent. The need to make sure I’m a “Good “ mother can make me spoil and coddle and mind-read their needs. It can make me ignore my own needs to take care of theirs. And too much of this can make me feel resentful and still I can raise children who take the world and me for granted. If I never allow them to do their work and experience the benefit of it, I am robbing them of identity moments. Opportunities to grow away from needing me.

Thankfully, I’m a Mom who understands that I have a separate life just like my children will. I have to be mindful and cautious not to spoil my whole family to my detriment. But I am certain that I am on the right path to showing them what it looks like to take responsibility for their actions and feelings and to be proud of their accomplishments which are theirs not mine. If you find yourself trying to coerce other people to feel things and are sure you know what everyone is thinking about you, you may want to look into this codependency thing a little more.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

In response to my piece Know Ledge, about knowing what we need to know at all times, my friend asked, “Why do we feel so alone?” . And I knew exactly what she meant. I spent so very many years feeling grief over the loneliness I felt in my bones. And this is what I said to my friend, “That is the longing for belonging”. Deeper down, we truly wish to belong to ourselves.

There is an immense difference between fitting in and belonging. I discovered this concept in Brene Brown’s book Daring Greatly and it made such sense out of so many painful life moments for me. When we try to fit in, we are being untrue to ourselves. We are trying to coerce others to like us for who we think they want us to be. And in the process, we can’t trust them for liking us because we aren’t being authentic. It’s stressful and fear based.

When we create a sense of belonging, we join with people who accept us for who we truly are. We show them ourselves, what makes us us, and they like/love us for what we are. There’s an element of risk here in that, when we show our underbellies, we can get rejected or kicked for who we are. We risk being cast out of the tribal circle. But the truth we don’t see is that, there’s a better circle for us somewhere out there where they will never cast us out no matter what because we are worthy and belong there. We just have to take the time to accept ourselves to them find the people who reflect this.

And so at the very base of belonging is the absolute necessity to accept ourselves as we are. We are fallible and human and there is beauty and ugly all wrapped up in the same skin just like everyone else. We are not trustworthy if we do not at least claim most of what we are. It is a dance but once we risk putting our truer face on and claim what we are, the belonging just happen. We magnetically attract like people to us. And we see that we belong in our own skin and accept ourselves for who we are.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a teen, a six year-old, and I turned 52 this year. This blog was born in 2011 and my hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.

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